The aloe vera plant comprises a fleshy, succulent leaf which is lance-shaped and grows in a warm climate. The leaf has jagged edges set with thorny spines along the outer edges thereof and contains a gel which, when extracted therefrom, is used in the preparation of medicinal compositions, cosmetics, soaps, medicants, etc. Extracting the gel from the leaf poses some problems since the leaf must first be split lengthwise in order to make the gel accessible for recovery.
In the past, the gel has been recovered by one first splitting the leaf lengthwise along the thickness of the leaf to thus present two half sections and then employing a hand tool such as a scraper to scrape the inner portion of the leaf to thus effect a recovery of the gel. As can be appreciated, this manner of recovering the gel was quite time-consuming and necessitated the employment of manual labor to recover the gel.
With the above in mind, it is one object of the invention to provide an apparatus which will automatically present an aloe vera leaf while the leaf is standing on its edge and to force the same against a cutting edge which will cut the leaf lengthwise along the thickness of the leaf into two sections and following the cutting operation, the leaf sections are then fed to squeezing rollers where the gel from within the leaf sections will be expressed from therewithin.
Another object of the invention is to provide a means whereby regardless of the thickness of the leaf, the same will always be centered with respect to the edge of the cutter mechanism to thereby cut the leaf lengthwise and centrally of the leaf.
Another object of the invention is to provide a means whereby the endless belts employed for transporting the leaf to the cutter mechanism of the apparatus will always exert a constant pressure on the leaf sandwiched between the pairs of endless belts feeding the leaf into the apparatus.
Another object of the invention is to provide a single source of power to drive all of the working rollers of the apparatus.
Other objects and advantages of the present invention will be made more apparent as this description proceeds, particularly when considered in connection with the accompanying drawings.